Berkshire has best chance of lasting 100 years, says Warren Buffett as Greg Abel takes charge

Warren Buffett said Berkshire Hathaway is uniquely positioned to withstand the test of time as he formally passed on the chief executive role to his chosen successor Greg Abel, offering a strong personal endorsement of the transition.

“I think it has a better chance of still being around 100 years from now than any other company I can think of,” Buffett said in a special interview with Becky Quick, excerpts of which were aired on CNBC on Friday.

Buffett officially stepped down as CEO on Thursday, bringing to an end a six-decade-long tenure that saw him transform Berkshire from a struggling textile operation into a trillion-dollar conglomerate spanning businesses from insurance to railroads, with more than $300 billion of cash on its balance sheet.


“Greg will be the decider,” Buffett said, adding that he “can’t imagine how much more he can get done in a week than I can in a month.” He went on to say he would “rather have Greg managing my money than any of the top investment advisors or any of the top CEOs in the United States.”

Berkshire shares have lagged the broader market since Buffett announced in May that he would retire, as some investors raised questions over whether Abel could oversee the conglomerate’s vast array of operating businesses alongside its equity portfolio, while continuing to command a premium valuation.

The 95-year-old investor also indicated that his public presence would diminish, saying he would not take the stage at Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting this year — a departure from a long-standing tradition that has attracted tens of thousands of shareholders to Omaha over the decades.

“Everything will be the same,” Buffett said. “I’ll come in. I won’t be up there speaking at the annual meeting, but I’ll be in the directors’ section.”

On Friday, Berkshire Hathaway’s post-Warren Buffett era began quietly, with the conglomerate’s shares edging lower after the “Oracle of Omaha” handed over the top job to Greg Abel, bringing to a close his six-decade-long run at the helm.

The company now faces the task of preserving its track record without its chief architect — the man who reshaped modern investing and turned Berkshire from a struggling textile maker into an investment behemoth valued at more than $1 trillion.